Thursday, October 4, 2012

Two Ways to Avoid Repeating KitchenAid's Blunder

Perhaps I've been a blogger for too long now (four and a half years and 416 posts between this blog and my blog on Forrester.com). The social media news may change day to day, but I find myself wanting to repeat former blog posts to address the issues we continue to see repeated.

Take, for example, the latest social media blunder, this time courtesy of KitchenAid. You can read the sordid details on Mashable, but it is a story we have seen before--an employee intended a tweet for his or her personal account but instead posted it on a corporate account. This tweet happened to rank high on the offensiveness scale, making it an even more egregious mistake: “Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! ‘She died 3 days b4 he became president’. #nbcpolitics”

I have read lengthy lists of tips on how to avoid making the same mistake we've now seen with Chrysler, Red Cross and KitchenAid. The tips are fine, but as I said almost a year and a half ago, there are just two things you need to do to avoid making the same error:

Have a personal filter: The fact you are responsible for a company's social media profile doesn't mean everything you say personally has to reflect the brand's personality, but you must consider the implications of your posts. First, once you are officially associated with a brand, anything you say in your Twitter or other social media streams can reflect upon your employer. Plus, there's always the chance you pull a KitchenAid (or an Augie) and mix your personal thoughts into the company's channel.

Keep them separated: As The Offspring said, you gotta keep 'em separated--your personal and professional social media tools, that is. For Twitter management, it is too easy to set up both your personal and professional accounts in a single Twitter client such as HootSuite. Doing so is a recipe for danger. Use different Twitter clients for different purposes, and you'll greatly reduce the risk.

Someone at KitchenAid made a career-altering mistake. Do not let this happen to you. Consider whether the content you post is the sort of thing with which you (and your employer) wish to be associated, and use different tools for business and personal posting to avoid making a silly but painful error.

6 comments:

Augie. I was just giving my team the same reminder today. Another suggestion would be when selecting people to be stewards of your or your client's social properties, you use their personal streams as an indicator whether they might be careless (no filter) or volatile public personalities. Although you can separate them through tools and they have the right to say whatever they want on their personal channels, it might bubble up internal bias's or tendencies in the person responsible for managing the account. Just like you want interpersonal skills when hiring a sales rep.

Good point, Joe. I certainly struggle with the whole idea of employee's right to be themselves, but you make a good point. The person with their finger on the tweet button for brand better be someone who has demonstrated you can trust them--both inside and outside of work!

Ken, While I support the sentiment in your comment, the reality is something different. Employees are told to "be themselves," and frankly, they want to be. No one wants to be completely constrained by the brand rules of their employer (not even me.)

I think good employees engage in ways that reflect positively on the brand, but that doesn't mean every person has to turn their person social stream into brand-appropriate messaging, IMO.

About Experience: The Blog

The world is changing rapidly, both for consumers and brands. Consumers are more empowered than ever before and traditional business models are under attack.

In an increasingly social, mobile and real-time world, brands are created not by the messages they broadcast but by the experiences they offer--ones that create empathy, build trust, earn loyalty, spur Word of Mouth, encourage collaboration, and provide ever greater value to customers in innovative ways. On this blog, we explore how brands are built and business improved via Customer Experience Management, purposeful corporate culture, social and mobile business strategy and collaborative economy models.

You are welcome to participate, criticize, praise, critique, expand, or correct the information and opinions found on this blog. Spam, off-topic, or crude comments will be deleted, but all others are welcome.

About the Author

I am Augie Ray, Research Director covering customer experience at Gartner. I conduct and publish research and advise Fortune 500 clients on the value, process, measurement and tools of customer experience. This includes topics such as Voice of the Customer (VoC), personas, customer journey maps, CX governance, and customer experiences metrics that are leading metrics of brand success.

Previously, I was Director of Global Voice of Customer Strategy for a Fortune 100 financial service company. My background includes more than 20 years of experience in digital, brand, customer experience and social media.

In the past, I led social business at USAA, a firm recognized for its innovative use of communities and social customer care within the financial service industry. I also consulted and published analysis as a Forrester analyst covering digital marketing and social media. In addition, I led a diverse $9 million agency team with specialties in digital development, digital experiential marketing and community strategy.

The future will bring a great deal of innovation that offers opportunities to organizations that are agile and willing to cannibalize their own business models (but it will severely challenge those organizations that cannot.)

The views expressed on this website/blog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.